Suzumiya Haruhi no Yuuutsu ep.10

June 7, 2006 | 38 Comments

This episode is just awesome. While last week's episode is enjoyable due to its slice-of-life feel, this one will probably satisfy those who dislike last week episode's slow pace. In terms of timeline, this story actually happens before after Mikuru and Itsuki's revelation in episode 5 and before the baseball game in episode 4. Yes, I realise that it's confusing but at this point in time, I don't see the point of complaining about it since the scheduling is pretty much set in stone by Kyoto Animation. Anyway, next week's episode will be episode 13 (Haruhi's timeline), Day of Sagittarius. I've added the new episode into the timeline below if you'd like to see it and the larger screenshots are now available. Last but not least, I've encoded Nagato vs. Asakura fight scene into a PSP format for those of you who want to carry this cool scene on your PSP.

Nagato Yuki vs. Asakura Ryouko smackdown! (50MB, for PSP/Quicktime)
Revised timeline

The episode begins with Kyon arriving at his class only to find his class rep, Asakura Ryouko looking concerned over Haruhi. From Ryouko's description it appears that Haruhi is not feeling well because of this she asks Kyon to take care of her. After Ryouko left, Kyon asks Haruhi why she didn't come yesterday to do the clubroom to do the review. Haruhi grumbles and tells Kyon that she's already done the review on her own. Upon hearing this, Kyon realises that Haruhi has gone on her own to revisit the route that they took back in episode 5. As Haruhi complains about the weather, Kyon tries to advise her to give up looking for these mysterious events and to try having a normal high school life. Kyon thinks Haruhi should look for a boyfriend and do the search with him. He thinks it'll kill two birds with one stone. Haruhi, however, doesn't like the suggestion and compares love to a temporary lapse in judgement.

Haruhi admits that she's in the mood for this kind of thing from time to time because she has urges. Having said that, she claims that she's not stupid enough to let such thing to leave her with a burden. Moreover, Haruhi has just set up SOS-Dan so she's not sure what will happen to the club if she has a boyfriend. Because of this Kyon suggests that she should just turn SOS-Dan into some kind of a club that has fun. Haruhi, however, vehemently rejects this because she made SOS-Dan because the kind of club that Kyon suggested is not her idea of fun. She then complains about the fact that she has recruited a cute mascot and a transfer student and yet nothing has happened. Because of this, she is hoping that a full-blown problem will happen. During the lesson, Kyon remembers that he received an anonymous message in his shoe locker. The message basically tells him to come to classroom 1-5 after all students have gone from the school.

Later on while inside the club room, Kyon realises that Haruhi has uploaded Mikuru's pictures onto the SOS-Dan site. Haruhi explains that she's putting up Mikuru's picture on the site's top page in the hope of bringing in lots of emails about strange happenings, as well as increasing their access counter. Kyon, however, disagrees with her method and decides to take the pictures off the site despite Haruhi's objection. He then lectures Haruhi about the danger of giving out personal information on the web as an excuse for taking the pictures off. However, when he thinks Haruhi doesn't see him, he decides to save Mikuru's picture into a seperate folder so he can viewed it later. Haruhi's mood then turns ugly and she tells Kyon that she's going home now. Because he has nothing else to do inside the club, Kyon ends up playing Othello with Mikuru to kill time off. Itsuki then appears to let them know that he has a part-time job so he can't stay around today.

Kyon eventually leaves the club as well and decides to meet the person who left him the message. He, however, is surprised upon finding out that the person is actually his class rep, Asakura Ryouko. Ryouko invites Kyon to come inside the class because she has something she wants to tell him. Ryouko then starts telling Kyon that humans always say that "it's better to regret something that one has done than to regret things that one did not do" and asks Kyon what he thinks about it. Kyon claims that he's not sure about common phrases but he thinks it means what it says. Ryouko then comes up with a hypotethical question where, if maintaining a status quo is far worse but no one knows what kind of action would improve the circumstance, she wonders what he will do. In other words, she wants to know if Kyon thinks that any change will be better than no change at all. She believes that nothing will improve if things stay as they are at the moment.

Upon hearing this Kyon can't help but agreeing with her hypotheticals. Ryouko is glad to hear this but then she tells Kyon that the higher-ups are a bunch of inflexible types who can't keep up with changes. But Ryouko is not happy to stay around and be complacent and believes that in this situation, it should be okay for her to use her own initiatives to create a change. She then tells Kyon that she gets tired of observing a static subject and therefore she'll kill Kyon and see how Haruhi will react. Upon saying this, Ryouko jumps towards Kyon and tries to slash him with a knife. Kyon barely avoids the knife and ends up falling onto the floor. Upon seeing the knife on Ryouko's hand, Kyon becomes panic especially when he realises that the girl is trying to kill him. Ryouko assures Kyon that this is no joke although she admits that she doesn't understand the concept of death for organic life forms. She also refuses to put the knife down because she really wants Kyon to die.

As soon as she said this, Ryouko jumps once again while swinging her knife at Kyon, ripping some of his clothes in the process. Kyon then realises that the exit door and the windows have disappeared and replaced by thick grey walls. Ryouko explains that this space is currently under her control and because of this, no one can enter or leave the place. Ryouko tells Kyon to give up because in the end the result will be the same. Kyon, however, ignores her and decides to place himself behind sets of tables and chairs to protect himself. Unfortunately for him, Ryouko manages to blast these objects out of her way without any difficulty. As a result, Kyon ends up fleeing for his life. Kyon is eventually trapped in a corner so he tries to throw a chair at Ryouko. Ryouko, however, creates a barrier field around her to block the incoming chair before destorying the item. She then tells Kyon that she should have done 'this' right from the start. Kyon suddenly unable to move his body.

Ryouko explains that if Kyon dies, Haruhi will certainly take some sort of action which will allow her to observe a considerably high data explosion. Ryouko then swings her knife and runs towards Kyon, trying to stab him. Before she manages to do this, however, the sky above them starts to crack and the debris from the opening fall into both of them. When Kyon opens his eyes, he realises that he can move his body again and Yuki is now standing in front of him, stopping Ryouko's knife with her hand. Yuki calmly tells Ryouko that her individual programs were too weak, especially the ones that deal with spatial lockdown and data blockade in lateral sector. Ryouko wonders if Yuki is going to be in her way. She tells Yuki that if they kill Kyon, Haruhi will certainly do something and allows them to obtain more data. Yuki, however, reminds Ryouko that she's supposed to be her backup and she's not authorised to make independent action.

If Ryouko refuses to obey, Yuki has no choice but to terminate Ryouko's data link. Ryouko challanges Yuki to do it since she thinks she has the upper hand in this space. Yuki replies back by saying that she's asking for a nullification of Ryouko's data link. Upon saying this, the knife in Yuki's hand disappears into sparks. Ryouko is surprised to see this and decides to jump away from Yuki. The two then begin a deadly battle whereby Ryouko tries to kill Kyon using some projectiles while Yuki tries to protect him using her power. Because of this, Yuki pulls Kyon towards her and orders the boy not to stray too far from her. Unfortunately Ryouko then begins to appear and disappear around the area so she can sneak her way behind Kyon. Because of this, Yuki has no choice but to kick Kyon away to protect him. At one point, however, Yuki is unable to create barrier to protect Kyon so she decides to shield him using her own body, splattering her blood on his face.

Kyon is shocked to see this and even more so when Ryouko sends her bright tentacle-like hands to finish Yuki off. Ryouko, however, gets the last surprise when Yuki tells her that this is the end and orders a nullification of data link. All of a sudden, everything in the area including the spears in Yuki's body turn to sparks. Yuki then reveals that it took a while but she eventually manages to force a program into this space. Ryouko now realises that Yuki had prepare a disollution factors before infiltrating the space. This is why Yuki was weaker because she already expanded her offensive data beforehand. Ryouko then starts to disappears into sparks as well. Before she disappears, however, she tells Kyon that he better watch his back because while he gets to live for now, another agent from a radical faction may come for him one day. It is also possible that Yuki's superiors may change their mind and asks Yuki to kill him instead.

After Ryouko completely disappears, Yuki falls into the ground but tells Kyon that her body did not suffer a significant injury. What is important now is to restore the classroom to the way it was. Upon doing this, however, she realises that she forgot to reconstruct her glasses. Kyon, however, tells her that she looks cuter without it. Before they can do anything else, Taniguchi barges in to the room and looks shocked upon seeing the two. He then apologises and runs away looking like he's about to cry. Yuki then offers to take care of the rest, including the manipulation of data so that other students think that Asakura Ryouko has transferred out of the school. The next day, Haruhi becomes excited upon hearing the news that Ryouko has transferred out of the school. Kyon, however, is more concerned with another mail he found in his shoe locker. This time around, however, the sender claims to be Asahina Mikuru.

When Kyon goes to the club room to see Mikuru, however, he finds someone who looks like Mikuru but is older and has longer hair. This Mikuru looks happy upon seeing Kyon and tells him that it's been a while. The woman tells him that she is is actually Mikuru from a future timeline. In order to prove this, she opens the top part of her blouse and shows Kyon the star-shaped birthmark on her breast. Unfortunately Kyon doesn't understand what Mikuru is talking about. Mikuru finds it strange because Kyon was the one who told her about this mark. After she said this, however, she remembers that the event that she mentioned hasn't happened yet. Because of this she becomes embarassed and immediately covers herself up. Mikuru then gets straight to the point by asking Kyon if he knows the story of Snow White. When Kyon confirms this, she tells him that he needs to remember the story the next time he encounters another dangerous situation.

Mikuru also points out that Haruhi will be with him when this situation arrive but unfortunately she can't disclose more information than this. Since Mikuru still have time, she decides to walk around the clubroom and becomes nostalgic when she sees the maid costume. Mikuru then looks as if she's about to kiss Kyon but she stops herself and settles for a hug. She tells him that it's better if he does not get too close to her. Before she departs, Kyon asks Mikkuru about her age but Mikuru simply winks at him and tells him that it's a 'classified information'. After Mikuru left, Yuki returns to the room so Kyon uses the opportunity to thank her for yesterday. Later on, Haruhi comes to inform him that the teacher only found out about Ryouko's departure this morning. Someone claiming to be Ryouko's father made the phone call to inform the school that he and Ryouko will be moving to Canada. Because Haruhi thinks that the whole thing is suspicious, she decides to drag Kyon to investigate the matter. Her excuse is because Kyon is a member of SOS-Dan.

Impression:

There were some references to the previous episodes in here. The most notable one is the conversation between Haruhi and Kyon about Mikuru's photo on the homepage. In episode 7, Haruhi complained about this fact but we were never shown what the homepage looked like when the photos were still up. Well, now you can see what it looked like thanks to this episode. In that same episode (7), Haruhi made a guess that the parent of Kimiko's boyfriend has probably gone off to Canada, making her sound as if she's associating every disappearance with Canada. In this episode, we find out that Haruhi thinks it's suspicious that Ryouko and his father have gone to Canada all of a sudden. Last but not least, the background in one of the enclosed space in this episode looks similar to the one the desert area back in episode 7. It really makes you wonder if Yuki was actually the one who controlled the events back in episode 7.

Speaking of Yuki, her cool level suddenly goes up straight to the roof here. It was amazing watching her sommersaulting from one area to another in order to protect Kyon. The best thing about the battle was probably how those projectiles turn out to be the chairs from inside the class. I thought that's a rather creative 'reuse' of one's surrounding equipment as weapon. Moving on to a different topic, it's kind of weird to see another Mikuru in this timeline especially when there is already another Mikuru from another timeline. I also wonder if this means that there isn't a Mikuru from this timeline (one that does not come from the future)? Anyway, it was nice to see future Mikuru having self-confidence that her younger version doesn't seem to have. It's also interesting how Kyon didn't notice the mole on the photograph before he put them away in the folder. But I suspect they'll keep this until the very last episode.

The thing that strikes me the most about Kyon and Mikuru's scene is that Mikuru really does have a feeling for Kyon after all. I feel sorry for her when she said "It's been a while" since it means something happens in the future where she and Kyon are no longer together. And judging from the way she almost hug Kyon, I think Mikuru misses him as well. At times like this, I wish the theory that Haruhi is Kyon is true but that doesn't seem likely if one considers her jealousy towards the other girls. Unless, of course, that's just a metaphor. One where Kyon's interest towards other girls represents his desire for normalcy, while his interest in Haruhi represents his interest in the paranormal. But I realise that I'm reaching. Having said that, that could explain why everything is actually centred around Kyon instead of Haruhi. Anyway, at times like this I wish there are other male characters in the series that Mikuru and Yuki like but that doesn't seem to be the case here.

Preview:

Next week's episode: Episode 13/Episode 11: Day of Sagittarius.

© memento 2003